The meeting of Arra-maïda and Péron

The most vivid description of an encounter between Baudin’s men and the Nuenonne is given by Péron. It took place right here.

Péron is walking the shore alone when he sees a 20-strong group of Aborigines coming towards him. Alarmed, he returns to his comrades, but when the two parties come together the Aborigines are seen to be women carrying shellfish, including crays and crabs, in large woven bags fastened around each forehead. One of the older women invites the French to sit, ‘whereupon they asked us a number of questions, seeming often to criticise our appearance and laughing heartedly at our expense’.

The expedition’s surgeon, Jérome Bellefin, sings and dances, for which ‘some applauded him with loud acclamation’. The most vivacious of the women then begins ‘to mimic his action and the tone of his voice’, after which ‘she began to dance and throw herself into diverse attitudes’. The same woman approaches Péron, taking charcoal from ‘a bag made of rushes’. Crushing it between her hands, she ‘paints’ Péron’s face.

The clear impression one gets is that the women are in control for the duration of the encounter. Péron notes that any attempt to approach the women causes them to run away; ‘we were therefore obliged to conform entirely to their wishes, that we might longer enjoy their company’. But when the party eventually falls in with their husbands the women utter ‘a cry of terror’.

A few days later Péron encounters the lively young woman from the shell-gathering party and discovers that her name is Arra-Meïda. At his request, the artist, Nicolas-Martin Petit, sketches Arra-Meïda. It is a strong, evocative likeness of a young woman with a babe at her breast.

We have Péron’s account of these two meetings, but what did Arra-Meïda make of them? We will never know: she vanishes from history, there being no further record of her.

Further Reading

Piron’s image ‘Aborigines of Van Diemen’s Land preparing their meal’, from Labillardiere’s Atlas, can be found reproduced often, including in Frank Horner, Looking for La Perouse, Melbourne Univ. Press, 1995.

The images of Arra-Meïda (or other women) are from the following sources, in order of appearance to the right:

The image of Peron, just before his death, is from Anthony J Brown, Ill-starred Captains Flinders and Baudin, Crawford House Publishers, 2000. It is held in the Collection Lesueur, Museum d’Histoiree Naturelle, Le Havre.

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Gallery

(Click to enlarge images)

This image, entitled Sauvages de Cap de Diemen préparant leur repas (Savages of Cape Diemen preparing their meal), was published by Labillardière in his ‘Atlas: Relation du voyage à la recherche de La Pérouse, in Paris in 1800. It contains engravings by Piron and the well-known botanical illustrator Redouté.

Arra-Maida ‘Femme de Cap Sud’ – The top image is the original picture made by Petit (Collection Lesueur du Havre). Many reproductions followed, some by expeditioners after their return to Europe, such as Freycinet (after Baudin’s expedition) and Beautemps-Beaupré (after D’Entrecasteaux’s), each of whom published an ‘Atlas’ of the southern lands. A study of these can reveal how European ideas about indigenous peoples changed over the course of the nineteenth century. Some of the reproductions made from this image are shown in the next images.

François Péron, drawn by Lesueur in 1810, about a fortnight before his death from tuberculosis at just 35 years of age. Péron, who joined Baudin’s expedition in the aftermath of an unfortunate love affair, seems to have been a man of fiery temperament and he frequently clashed with Baudin. He became the expedition’s chief zoologist after the deaths of his two immediate superiors, and with Lesueur collected some 100,000 zoological specimens. Although he died young, he was an insightful and significant contributor to the foundations of antipodean science, and he wrote a great deal about the Aborigines of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. After Baudin’s death, Péron completed the official account of the expedition. In so doing he greatly tarnished Baudin’s reputation. (Museum d’Histoiree Naturelle, Le Havre).